You understand the investigation was going on under Obama right?

Wichita you're that guy who takes the opposite sides of things just to do it and then you'll defend that line in the sand to simply test yourself. Quit the bull****.

"It didn't happen or it would have leaked by now" is just silly given that this just happened 2 days ago.

If your standards for caring are Trump is an agent of a foreign power, then fine I see why you're not excited, but that's not the standard any normal person would apply.

You are dumb as **** sometimes.

If you are left of center and publicly saying this is nbd, you have lost the plot bigly. Acting like this is a smoking gun is a freeroll, whether it actually is or isn't. The GOP will laugh up their sleeves (to use a phrase I came up with a couple of days ago) if they see Dems with a measured response to Comey's testimony, as they run campaign ads linking Jon Ossoff to ISIS. But hey, at least we can say we played fair and gave Donald ****ing Trump the benefit of the doubt. LOL.

Trump specifically asked the Russians to hack Clinton's emails.

“I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” the Republican nominee said at a news conference in Florida. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...ionship-226282

denying reality is how we know we're a real family here

Telling people to stop posting, or quit participating the way they want is not good.

This is elite.

I know I am way behind and trying to catch up, just wanted to note the whole back channel rebuttals are so ignorant. Yes back channels are a regular part of active administrations. Ben Franklin was a back channel to the French.

What is not even a little bit common, normal or acceptable are political campaigns having back channels to foreign countries especially adversaries, double especially are biggest adversary. Not to mention over and over again.

So when people talk about the Russian Ambassador visiting the whitehouse of a sitting administration that is actual an acceptable and rational thing. When a campaign running for president is having clandestine meetings during the campaign with the same individuals and others like them it's not okay at all.

I have yet to see a single person who has worked on any previous presidential campaign support the idea that this ever happened at all let alone was common place.

The trump campaign stands completely alone in the history of campaigns that we know of at it's not even close.

It would be like a baseball player punching the home plate umpire in the arm every time the batter got a called strike and then saying this is common. Yet nobody had ever once done it before. It is totally ridiculous.

CNN saying the Trump feels "vindicated" about Comey's opening statement and is pleased to move on.

Yea, Donny, that's not how this works buddy.

This is a terrible post. WDM's fundamental point is that nothing short of outright collusion will result in Trump's impeachment. That is probably correct.

To the extent he is saying that Democrats should drop the Russia issue entirely absent evidence of outright collusion, I disagree, but that doesn't seem like his main point.

I really hate this sentiment. It's the fast track to the gutter.

I'm a broken record on this but there's a stark difference between "giving Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt" and prioritizing poorly.

Russia/Trump remains:

- useless to building any sort of foundational goals of the left
- difficult to attach to the right and the GOP in a deep and meaningful way
- not relevant to many voters
- probably unlikely to ultimately get Trump out of power
- subservient to centrist, MSNBC-Republican interests
- utility limited to the personal destruction of Trump

Obviously Democrats shouldn't meekly play nice due to some adherence to some politeness norm. But the Russia story is, at the end of the day, a distraction from the business of movement building; a movement that is basically rudderless and adrift right now. The whole way the issue is being cast is basically a right-winger frame from the Cold War era that Trump is some corrupted Soviet agent.

It might prove politically successful in the short term and the destruction of Trump is a high ideal, no doubt. But continued focus on it with the only gains a slow erosion of Trump's personal credibility and not much else -- it remains a mistake, a missed opportunity.

What the PR spin teams do tomorrow, well, sure, whatever, go HAM on Trump. But the Democrats continued focus on Russia is "losing the plot bigly."

Trump asked Russia to hack Clinton. Trump fired Comey over Russia. There is plenty of stuff out there to show collusion and obstruction of justice. Simply ignoring it does not mean it didn't happen.

Democrats really need to make this count and they're losing the political battle. They're still playing the high ground by not magnifying this enough.

Think about it. The Republicans had hearings over Bill getting blown, Hillary's e-mails, and Hillary's connection to Benghazi even though little to nothing illegal was really done. They were all political witch hunts. To this day, there is a not insignificant portion of America that still believes complete and utter rubbish about both Obama and Clinton even though they have been proven to be myths countless times because of this behavior by Republicans. Even if nothing comes of this investigation and the smoking gun doesn't come, it needs to be imprinted into the minds of people that Trump secretly worked with Russia to win the election.

It may be unethical to do this with Russia, but who gives a **** about ethics now. This is the new world of politics and if the Dems want to win in 2018, they need to blow their horn loud and clear about this to the point where we instinctively think of Russia and their meddling when we think of Trump.

The Democrats need to come up with short, catchy phrases that can be used to encapsulate everything about the GOP's unethical behavior the way the Republicans did to shame Hillary and rile up their base.

@DVaut: At the risk of sounding like a broken record myself, I don't see why you continue to view this as an either/or proposition. Whether it's good for movement building or not, the Comey/Russia stuff will be the news cycle for the next few days. Every Democrat on TV should be on message that Trump is guilty as hell, Comey's testimony proves it, and GOPe is covering for him because they are corrupt, partisan hacks. When that cycle dies down, we can hammer them hard on healthcare / charity for the super rich. Call me crazy, but I think voters have enough space in their brains to hold "Trump and GOP bad in this way" and "Trump and GOP bad in this other way" simultaneously.

We already have a smoking gun. Comey says Trump obstructed justice and has multiple people who can vouch for it. The two guys who testified today did not deny that Trump tried to obstruct. There is enough to impeach right now. What else do you need? I mean how much worse can it get? The GOP just doesn't want to impeach.

How though? The GOP controls everything right now. The Dems are pretty much blocked every which way.

Yea exactly. The GOP is just trying to run the clock out til the next scandal pops up. They have no interest in doing what's best for the country.

Pretty much this. I think this is not likely to result in Trump's ouster and the sooner either the evidence is produced against him or we move on to his next **** show that is impeachable the better.

Those of you guys who cry concern troll, republican talking points, etc. are all obviously so emotionally invested in the Russia thing being it that you can't objectively analyze anything related to it.

If the goal is to cause a **** storm around Trump then sure the Russia thing is great. If the goal is to get rid of Trump the Russia thing is very unlikely to cause his ouster barring some hard evidence which is very unlikely to suddenly appear given the alleged acts were last year and this investigation has been going on for over a year well before Trump came to office. I'm not saying it's impossible hard evidence will appear but it looks unlikely given what we know.

And to ItsGunBeGood you have historically been wrong about just about everything over time from Tiger, Sports, Politics, Etc. I am not trying to argue something just because. It is just blatantly obviously for the reasons I have stated its very unlikely there is currently known hard evidence against Cheetolini regarding Russia. Unless you want to talk obstruction and then sure there is evidence there but everyone absent the most hardcore delusional posters and talking heads know that isn't going to result in anything.

Trump's lawyer doesn't dispute the statement and says ot vindicates Trump. lol Trump lawyer I guess.

The R strategy that is working beautifully on Wichita is summed up in these two quotes.

1) Ryan says he's withholding judgment on Trump/Comey: "My job is to make sure we don't prejudge anything... Let the facts go w/ever they are."

2) Ryan tells @greta he hasn't read Comey testimony but "from wht I've been briefed on, sounds like it's much of what's already been reported."


Bombshell report......... I'm going to be patient and see where the facts take us......... welp, the facts only verify the previous reports that we didn't do anything about since they weren't verified, nothing to see here..... new bombshell........ I'm going to be patient and see where the facts take us......welp, the facts only verify the previous reports that we didn't do anything about since they weren't verified, nothing to see here.

There is already maximum media exposure to Trump/Russia. So the Democrats have done their job on that level. They have all the media elites attention. The world is watching. You can't say we have failed at that level.

Instead, it's our business model that is broken.

The reason why Republican pretend faux scandals hit home with their base whereas genuine, real scandals about Republicans fall flat is probably explainable entirely by the audience rather than the strategies and implementation by the people ginning up the scandals.

This is a very trivial but seemingly deeply embedded mistake, burrowed deep in the collective Democrat/left's hivemind that they can simply import the GOP's scandal machines wholesale and win. It often fails, and the Democrats and the left frustrate themselves about the unfairness of it all. But it's our mistake. The reasons are clear: The GOP plays to entirely savagely partisan morons and zombies who long ago decided their amygdalas belonged to Fox News alerts and Drudge sirens about traitorous DemocRAT wrongdoing. Democrats have a far more eclectic mix of voters largely unified by their pursuit of economic justice, often simply people who want more of things they don't have.

Stop trying to import their ****ty products that they sell to tasteless idiots. We sell material economic benefits to people who don't have as many things and want more. The Republicans sell betrayal and scandal against the collective federation of white tribes. You will forever be disappointed trying to sell pulp fiction novels to people who want practical guides to better living.